There is a giant wheel in the heart of the city. It claims to be the largest wheel in the world. It carries cubicles or containers that house a maximum of 24 people inside each of it. The wheel rotates on its massive axis and through the glass built containers one gets a birds eye view of the city of Singapore. An engineering feat, it is run as efficiently as all else is this economic power house destination. Once it starts to rotate, it does not stop. The speed is slow enough for inmates to enjoy gradually the unfolding scenario below and slow enough to allow the passengers to get off and on while it moves.

There are many cities in the world that have this expanded version of the Ferris Wheel and they all form an important land mark.

As I climb on to one compartment and the glass doors shut, I marvel at the amount of precision work that it has taken to build and operate this monstrous object of entertainment. Within the cabin, recorded voices keep you abreast of what precautions one must take and what the history of the country is, at it unfolds. What Singapore was like some years ago and what it now is and what it shall become in the years to come.

Time moves on like an endless never ending wheel.

‘Anvarat samay ki chakki chalti jati hai’ - words from my Fathers poem on the rush of life - ‘Jeevan ki aapadhapi mein ~’

The wheel then, does become a symbol of time moving on, not stopping for anyone, continuous in motion. It waits for no one, nor does it care. It has a job to do, to move, to rotate. The compartments built to house visitors perhaps are the various episodes of our lives, earmarked moments, where we all enter shut the doors and are unable to come out, till it is voluntarily opened for us. We are able to see where we are going, we are able to be seen by others where we are going, but until it is time we remain in there, because there really is no other option. When the rotation is done, when the circle is complete we step out and make way for others to come in. We stand apart and look up to see the others slide their way up into the skies and then slide down to the starting point again.

Our lives resemble this giant wheel in operation.

The wheel signifying life, the various compartments opportunities that we occupy, which we keep for a while and then abandon because life wishes it so. It opens its doors at the time to enter, then opens it again for us to get off ! Life as it rotates takes us to the top of the world, to the very tip of the circle extremity. And then begins to slide down to where we boarded.

Each one of us shall board this compartment of life, enjoy its ride till its maximum extremities and then slide back to where we boarded. Life has constructed itself around us in this fashion. There will be a pinnacle to achieve and reach, but once there, it shall not remain stationary. It will move, it will come down and it will open its doors to get off it.

When you get off, the ride is complete and were you to desire another, you would have to get off and buy another ticket. Another life to be lived and existed with.

I leave you, with love and life’s beauty ~

Amitabh Bachchan